I hear the call. It breaks my focus. I almost had it, I feel sure: the correct proportions were there. I consider the small models lined along the empty bookcase. When I brought this clay with me, I expected shells, and leaves, and flowers, and so they are, content and complete, and I’ve lost interest […]

The children’s centre sat at the bottom of rickety steps descending from the end of the cul-de-sac. Dark brown brick set on an uneven weedy lawn – it was begrudgingly funded by the council. Everything was rationed and short-changed to the degree that visitors paid 50p for bitter, gritty coffee and the central heating hadn’t […]

And then it’s time. The vicar asks Rachael first, because she lives here, I suppose. Or because she’s organised the funeral, or goes to church, or because she looks and acts older even though she’s not. I don’t mind. Not really. She crouches down, like she’s making eye contact with a toddler, picks up a […]

‘When yer momma broke in, she didn’t realise there was a dog. It was dark out, wintertime. ’Bout three years back now. I was upstairs sleepin’, Ralph on the floor. She prob’ly thought the place was abandoned. We’re out in the butt crack a’ nowhere, wouldn’t be too strange.’ Ellie was about five, Joe guessed […]

Helen was standing by the milk with a list in one hand and a phone in the other. Julia had found the Almond Thins she came in for and was looking at yogurts – her daughter didn’t like peach or cherry, so she’d been scanning the multipacks for offending flavours. When she saw Helen, she […]

Alex Pickett was born in South Wales and moved to Dorset during his childhood. He has a lifelong passion for all things creative, including writing, painting and illustration. Alex holds a degree in psychology, specialising in the science of reading, and works as a primary school teacher – a job he adores. His style of […]

Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments when her children are asleep. She has lived in Holland, Germany and Hong Kong, but now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She started writing about ten years ago, first travel pieces while she was living abroad, then moving onto fiction. Her flash […]

J. Federle was born and raised in Kentucky and earned an MA in nineteenth-century poetry in England⁠. When she writes, Romanticism meets the US south, Gothic and Greek imagery fusing with folk-tale humour. Her years in Peru, married to a supportive Limeño, have improved her Spanish, if not her ability to dance. Federle started submitting […]

After completing an English degree at Oxford University and working as an actor and arts administrator in London, Clare Owen married a boatbuilder and moved to Cornwall. She squeezes writing (and occasionally performing) around roleplay jobs, renovating a house, bringing up three kids and doing Airbnb in a wooden cabin at the end of the […]

Rosalind Goldsmith lives in Toronto. She teaches evening classes in an adult literacy programme. During the day she drinks too much coffee, writes, reads, and usually manages to avoid cat videos on YouTube. Rosalind has written radio plays for CBC Radio Drama and a play for the Blyth Theatre Festival, and has also translated and […]